The road to the LOLathon began
Radio 1’s next 24-hour joke marathon was only days away.
Jordan North had been given an enormous red Book of LOL and sent around the UK to collect jokes in places with funny names.
His route already included Nob End and Ramsbottom.
Scott and Chris were delighted that the geography could do part of the comedy before anybody even opened the joke book.
The eventual ambition was to take the book to places with even stronger names.
The 24-hour broadcast would start the following Wednesday.
Scott and Chris cleared the air in advance
Knowing they were about to spend a full day and night together, Scott and Chris also aired petty complaints about each other before the event.
The theory was simple.
Get the irritation out now.
Then remain nice for the LOLathon.
Neither genuinely believed 24 hours without a small argument was guaranteed.
Joel Corry campaigned for Bangers
Joel Corry also rang the show trying to get one of his tracks chosen for Bangers.
Celebrity lobbying normally did not guarantee anything.
This attempt actually worked well enough for the record to be played.
Scott noted that direct campaigning could apparently influence Radio 1 democracy after all.
Sam volunteered for Where Do You Think They Were?
The month’s final conception story featured Sam and his mum Beth.
The likely date was New Year’s Eve 1986.
Beth and Sam’s dad Rob had first attended a party where the host had somehow consumed most of the food and drink.
They moved to the local pub.
Beth remembered Rob becoming increasingly amorous as the evening continued.
Rob had another defining trait.
He regularly dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow at local events.
Scott immediately renamed him Pirate Rob.
“Wushy!”
Back at the house, Rob began chasing Beth around.
The following morning, Beth’s 14-year-old nephew remembered seeing the chase and hearing Rob repeatedly shout:
“Wushy!”
Scott and Chris had no idea what the word meant.
Sam did.
It was a family nickname for an intimate part of his mum’s body.
That revelation nearly ended the feature on the spot.
Sam said he felt physically unwell.
Scott kept going.
Pirate Rob entered the call himself
A recording or contribution from Rob confirmed the pronunciation.
“Wushy!”
The programme now had Pirate Rob effectively providing his own mating call.
Beth continued the story.
The pair eventually disappeared elsewhere in the house.
The precise geography became less important than the level of detail Sam was being forced to hear.
Scott introduced pirate music and began joking about Rob’s sword fight.
Sam repeatedly asked them to stop.
Beth appeared to be enjoying the opportunity far more than her son.
February ended at maximum overshare
By the conclusion, even Scott thought the story had become unusually confusing and explicit.
The month had begun by giving listeners extra material from Billy’s postwoman-and-plumber story.
It ended with a Cornish pirate, New Year’s Eve and the word Wushy permanently attached to Sam’s family history.
Between those two points, Where Do You Think They Were? had produced a bush, a Morris Marina, a salmonella honeymoon and a live proposal.
February 2019 had been one of the feature’s busiest months yet.
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